The Reverend Andrew Freeman (1876-1947) is a
name familiar to most organ historians – not
least
because of his important work on the organ
builder ‘Father’ Smith, written in 1926 and
edited
by John Rowntree (Positif Press, 1977). This new
publication, launched at the British Institute of
Organ Studies’ 40th Anniversary Conference in
Cambridge, is a record of Freeman’s important
photography and
writings which are now deposited in the British
Organ Archive in
the Cadbury Research Library at the University of
Birmingham.
His photography of organ cases commenced in the
1890s, continued during his employment (from the age of 39) in
the Church of
England, and from 1923 as vicar of
Standish-with-Hardwicke in
Gloucestershire. From there he must have made a
curious impression on his parishioners as he continued to
travel by bicycle or
public transport with his camera equipment to
take photographs
of interesting organ cases.

Under Katharine Pardee’s editorship, four organ
historians
have been commissioned to write about aspects of
Freeman’s
work: Nicholas Thistlethwaite examines his life
and activities;
Christopher Kent looks at organography before
Freeman’s activities; James Berrow’s chapter provides an
assessment of Freeman’s
work as a critic and designer of organ cases, and
of his consultancy
and written work; and Andrew Hayden describes the
photographic
techniques and the equipment available to Freeman
during his
lifetime. Pardee’s contribution is an overview of
his journals from
his six trips to the continent in the period
around the second
world war. Much of the book – well over 200 pages
– is devoted to
Freeman’s photographic plates of organ cases,
both small and large,
throughout the United Kingdom, as well as in
France, Belgium,
Austria, Germany and Switzerland. His foreign
excursions were
undertaken between 1927 and 1939, with one final
trip in 1946.
Extracts from his fascinating notebooks
(originally written up and
published in The Organ and Musical
Opinion) are part-reproduced
in miniature facsimile in a series of colour
pages.

The black-and-white photographic plates are
perhaps the most
interesting part of the book – providing a
snapshot of instruments
and church interiors between 1895 and 1945. Some
wonderful
artistic casework (photographed by Freeman) has
subsequently
been lost (Jesus College and Clare College,
Cambridge, St Clement
Danes, Strand, Radley College), altered (Trinity
College,
Cambridge) and many interesting period consoles
have been
transformed through modernisation. Just as
interesting is the
occasional clutter in some churches – including
consoles and
choir stalls strewn with music, psalters and hymn
books. The
photographs record church interiors with pews
which have subsequently been ripped out, together with
interesting items of period
furniture fixtures and fittings in churches,
cathedrals and halls.
A number of the plates have an extract from
Freeman’s occasionally entertaining (but usually erudite)
commentaries: ‘A bar of
wood across the front of the pipes is an
unnecessary and mistaken
feature’ (Christ Church, Chalford,
Gloucestershire), and, of the
‘curious contraption’ at Tavistock: ‘It would be
quite easy to call it
opprobrious names’.

This is a book to dip into again and again, and I
congratulate
BIOS on marking its 40th anniversary with such a
noble piece
of scholarship.